Nokia X7-00 review

It’s more the guts of Symbian that put us off using it on a day-to day basis. The main menu, accessed by pressing the single button underneath the screen, includes some common apps, as well as some icons that look like apps but are in fact folders with further collections of apps. An Applications folder contains more apps, and more folders with more apps. Despite some attempt to group apps by function, there’s little logic in this organisation.

The Settings menu has changed little over the years, and again it’s a mess of options that makes it hard to adjust advanced settings. Thankfully, you no longer have to define a Connection before you can choose a Wi-Fi network and connect to it, but quirks remain; to disconnect from a network, for example, you have to long-press on it in the WLAN menu, rather than simply unticking a Wi-Fi box as on most other phones. You won’t to worry too much about Wi-Fi use, though – the X7 has fantastic battery life, lasting almost three times as long as many Android smartphones in our MP3 playback test.

We can’t see any reason to buy a Symbian phone now, but the X7 is such a beautifully-made device that it’s almost tempting. If you’re used to Symbian, your familiarity with the operating system may entice you towards the phone, but we can’t see those who’ve tried Android or iOS taking the plunge.